The U.S. this week sanctioned more than 30 people, entities and ships helping to sell and move Iranian petroleum products, including oil brokers in the United Arab Emirates and Hong Kong, tanker managers in India and China, and Iranian oil officials. The Treasury Department said the newly designated tankers have helped ship tens of millions of barrels of Iranian crude oil worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
Canadian express courier Purolator has agreed to buy Livingston International, Purolator said in a Feb. 4 news release. The customs broker and freight forwarder “will now become a wholly owned subsidiary of Purolator led by its existing leadership team managing its day-to-day operations,” the release said. Purolator is itself majority owned by Canada Post, the primary postal operator in Canada. The terms of the deal weren’t disclosed.
Senate Banking Committee ranking member Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., urged the Commerce Department Feb. 3 to strengthen export controls following the recent “breakthrough development” of an advanced artificial intelligence model by Chinese startup DeepSeek.
The Office of Foreign Assets Control fined a Miami-based real estate firm and its owner more than $1 million after the agency said they helped two sanctioned Russian oligarchs transfer their luxury condominiums to their non-sanctioned family members. The firm, Family International Realty LLC, “engaged in a willful scheme” to evade U.S. sanctions against Russia, OFAC said, and earned about $180,000 in commission fees for helping to manage the properties.
The U.S. announced a host of new sanctions against Russia’s energy sector last week, targeting major Russian oil producers, oil service providers and insurance companies, as well as vessels and traders moving Russian oil as part of the country’s shadow fleet. The Office of Foreign Assets Control also issued two new determinations that authorize sanctions against any person or entity with ties to Russia’s energy sector and that block the provision of U.S. petroleum services to parties in Russia, and it announced it will soon be ending a general license that had authorized certain Russia-related energy payments.
CBP issued a proposed rule this week that could mandate the submission of more detailed electronic export manifest (EEM) data for cargo leaving the U.S. by rail, identify which parties should be submitting that electronic information, and set timelines for how soon that information would need to be submitted before the cargo leaves the country.
The Office of Foreign Assets Control fined C.H. Robinson, one of the world’s largest logistics firms, more than $250,000 after OFAC said its non-U.S. subsidiaries violated sanctions against Iran and Cuba. The five subsidiaries allegedly provided freight brokerage or transportation services for 82 shipments to or from Iran or involving Iranian or Cuban goods, while one of the companies also did business with sanctioned Iranian airline Mahan Air.
The State Department should scale down the International Traffic in Arms Regulations’ brokering reporting rules, which could reduce filing burdens for the defense industry and give the Directorate of Defense Trade Controls more accurate and timely information about ITAR brokering activity, industry officials said this week.
A Chinese national was arrested on Dec. 3 for allegedly conspiring to export firearms, ammunition and other military items to North Korea, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Central District of California announced. Shenghua Wen, an illegal resident of California, was charged with conspiracy to violate the International Emergency Economic Powers Act and faces a maximum of 20 years in prison.
The Office of Foreign Assets Control fined Berlin-based Aiotec GmbH $14.55 million to settle allegations that it violated sanctions against Iran, OFAC said in a Dec. 3 enforcement notice. OFAC said the company, which sources industrial equipment for the energy sector, falsified documents and took other steps to hide that its purchase of an Australian industrial plant from a U.S. reseller would be moved to Iran.